IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Queen Mary Avenue, TILBURY, RM18 8NR

Originally the Bata Hotel.

The yellow sign says "East Tilbury residents. This is your village hall. Use it. respect it. Protec it." (as spelt!). It is not being used, and well shuttered up on a Sunday.

This is the Image it is unusual in that it is an exclusively second world war memorial for the workers of the Image you can see in the background.

The dedication on the memorial you can see in Image

Please see Glyn Baker's Image] for a view in the opposite direction, and his Image] for a view of the inscription. Since Tomáš Baťa only founded his shoe production factory here in 1932, the Memorial only commemorates World War II deaths. Since Glyn's 2011 photograph the railings around the memorial plinth have been removed.

So says the sign at the left, but no obvious medical centre could be seen close by. The buildings beyond are flat-roofed houses on Bata Avenue, one of the original developments when the Bata shoe factory and the estate for its workers was established. Rigg-Milner was the name of a G.P. who was my family doctor 50 years or more ago, not very far from here - could it be the same person?

Along with the shoe factory, Tomáš Baťa also planned housing, schools and shops for his employees. 2 Bata Avenue, seen here, is now a Grade II Listed Building and the Historic England website describes it thus:- "House. 1930-1933. Designed by Vladimir Karfik and Frantizek Gahura and built by a variety of local contractors. Flat roofed. Hybrid construction, with front and side walls of concrete poured in lifts of about one metre in height; interior partition and rear walls appear to be made from brick and then faced in concrete. International Style. Two storeys and four-window range with half landing window on centre axis above main entrance. Entrances on returns. Thin projecting cornice. All openings flat arched. One of a pair of gateway buildings to Bata Avenue, their design was unique. Forms a group with Nos 4-34 (even) Bata Avenue." Curiously only the houses on the north side of Bata Avenue merit Grade II Listing. The other one in the pair of gateway buildings and the odd numbered houses do not. Judging by the signs stating "staff parking" on the building, it is not in residential use anymore.

An unusual feature of the pedestrianised streets in the area is they are named after rivers with no title such as street road or drive. This is the edge of “Welland”